The racism Mandela surmounted is alive and well in modern Ireland

MYTHS are the stories that groups tell themselves: the beautiful lies that allow life go on. This is a week of great myth making. In the death and interment of Nelson Mandela we are witnessing modern myth being made in front of our eyes. But myths can be pernicious and evil — corroding life as well as enhancing it.

One Dutch word in the English language is ‘apartheid’. It is one of the most socially evil systems ever devised. Mandela played a great role with countless, often nameless others, in destroying and supplanting apartheid. The greater achievement was not bringing down apartheid — it was in successfully replacing it.

South Africa of course is deeply flawed. It could hardly be other, so soon. Neither the role played by Mandela or the ANC can or should be free from criticism. History will slowly but surely winnow his lasting legacy from the Princess Diana-like lather of the past days. Mandela will emerge a somewhat chastened but far more credible figure because of it. What is in progress there and here this week is a great rush to take possession politically, and to profit by association, with an embryonic mythical Mandela.